Free Strands of Bronze and Gold by Jane Nickerson Page A

to be gliding about on the dusky fringes, handing M. Bernard canes and things; the cook is French; and Ling, the butler, is a Chinese man. He’s very old, with long, straggly whiskers that look as if he might chew upon the ends
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    As for the Negro servants—there’s so many it’s a challenge to learn all their names. Why, there are two men simply to care for the candles and lamps (David and Clovis—there! I remembered). Our coachman reminds me of that client of Papa’s, Mr. McTavish. Except that Samuel Coachman is not fat or white or Scottish. I try to help Willie the gardener sometimes. I don’t think he’s too terribly bothered by it, but this is the sort of thing he says when I’m snip ping away at shrubbery: “Miss Sophia, you gotta be more careful. You just gouged a big hole in that there bush.” You’ll agree that being more cautious is good advice for the likes of me. I wish I could be friends with all the servants, but they won’t let me, so instead, I try to be dignified. That doesn’t work either
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    My godfather is all that is generous and welcoming. He’s a fine gentleman, and quite young, really, compared to how we thought he would be. He looks piratical. Did you ever suspect how fond I am of brigands? I’m anxious for you to meet him, as I’ve never met anyone like him before. It’s hard to imagine there could be anyone else like him. He treats me with great kindness. He is a widower a few times over, poor man. He is so good to me that it’s now my Goal in Life to help him be happy
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    I tell him stories in the evenings, as I often told to you, as well as other amusing and useful things I learned from my vast reading of ladies’ periodicals. The other day I informed M. Bernard how
The Girls’ Book of Diversions
described the best methods of swooning. Do you remember when I read it aloud to you? It said, “The modes of fainting should all be as different as possible and may be very
diverting.” Anyway, I demonstrated some of the modes of fainting we all (except Junius) devised, and he laughed and laughed. No, Anne, I was not being a romp—or at least not much—and he liked it. By the way, he doesn’t approve of corsets and tight lacing any more than Papa did. He compares them to the bound feet of women in China or the neck rings worn by some Asian and African tribes. Not that we talk of corsets or undergarments often
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    He loves to tease. He’s a great one for laughing. I like him so much, I would follow him around constantly like a puppy dog if he (or I) would let me, but he spends the days either shut up in his office with his agent (Mr. Bass—a thin, nervous fellow with a prominent Adam’s apple) or riding around to supervise his holdings, so I don’t usually see him till I’m dressed for the evening. It’s all so different from what I’m used to. From the time I get up until suppertime, no one tells me what to do, so I must tell myself what to do
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    Here is my daily schedule I have just now planned:
         
After breakfast I will:
         *
walk or ride (yes, I have my own horse—her name is Lily)
         *
read
         *
write letters
         
After luncheon I will:
         *
do needlework
         *
play the piano
         *
study history and geography so M. Bernard will not find me too shockingly ignorant
    Ducky says perhaps M. Bernard will give a ball in my honor. How many times, Anne, did we imagine such a thing, and now it may come true. And I am
to have a French maid. Probably she’s to help me learn French. Are you snickering? True, it was not my best subject.…
    Anne, what happened in the last installment of “The Bride of Lord Blackwood” from the
Ladies’ Repository
? I never did get to finish it. Remember how they kept referring to the heroine as “the laughing fair”?
    M. Bernard has given me so many lovely things, and I feel selfish to have so much now, and you so little, but I can’t ask him for gifts to send you just yet, although I